It appears like head honchos of the gaming industry aren’t particularly excited about Microsoft’s upcoming OS. Blizzard’s Executive VP of Game Design Rob Prado tweeted that Windows 8 is “not awesome for Blizzard either”.

The tweet came as response to the interview with Valve’s Gabe Newell, where he said that Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. Newell forecasted that many top tier PC makers will leave the market and talked up the importance of open platforms, pointing out the company’s recent outreach to Linux.

Seeing as how Prado is held in quite high regard both by Blizzard and the likes of Time Magazine, his opinion surely cannot be ignored that easily. Judging by mere size and influence of the companies we’re talking here, this is definitely not the end of it. And while we'd be normally be inclined to tell Mr. Prado to focus on that offline Diablo singleplayer first and then go about his Windows 8 bashing, we'll let it slide this once.

Speaking to VentureBeat, Valve's co-founder and chief executive Gabe Newell shed some light on what we could or should expect when it comes to future of gaming, and he definitely raises some interesting points.

Newell pointed out the problematic of closed platforms and the fact that although lucrative, the concept poses a threat to innovation. He reminded that companies such as Valve, id Software, Epic, Facebook and Google wouldn't have come to exist had there not been for the PC and the openness of the entire platform.

Newell said Windows 8 is "kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space". He said he fears that some top tier PC manufacturers will exit the market due to destroyed margins.

Valve sees Linux as part of the solutioin and is keen on making sure it thrives. Seeing as how the company is sure that absence of games is among the main culprits, Newell said:" So we’re going to continue working with the Linux distribution guys, shipping Steam, shipping our games, and making it as easy as possible for anybody who’s engaged with us — putting their games on Steam and getting those running on Linux, as well."

Indeed, the announcement of Steam, Left 4 Dead 2 and more recently Serious Sam 3 confirms that Valve is making a strong effort towards giving Linux a hand, even if it's for gaming alone.

Newell also delved into the ever evolving controls and what we should expect after mouse & keyboard, touch and even beyond. All in all, the interview is quite a nice and informative read and you can find it in full here.

While Valve says they are not working on a platform of their own, they do seem to want to promote an open platform for both the living-room and mobile space. It would now seem that Valve is developing this “open platform” to be a blueprint for manufacturers in both the living-room and mobile space.

Moving in this direction would eliminate the problems of proprietary hardware; but it is unknown if manufacturers would actually view this as a good thing or not. It seems to us that eliminating the hardware uniqueness could lead to fewer differences between manufacturers and lessen the amount of innovation on the platforms.

Valve does not see it this way, but they have yet to make a final decision of the design of the hardware or what role Valve would play in these open platform standards. Valve does continue to say that work in this area does not signal that the company is getting into the hardware business.

Rovio has confirmed that the next chapter in the Angry Birds saga will be coming to iOS, Android, Mac, and PC on March 22nd. The new title will be called Angry Birds Space; and when it is released on the 22nd, it will appear on all platforms simultaneously.

The game will have 60 new levels as well as a number of new Angry Birds with new skills and super powers to master. Additional levels will be available for purchase in the future. The game will also be available for purchase at retail in the future.

Rovio worked in conjunction with NASA to broadcast the launch announcement from the International Space Station. Besides showing a preview of the new game, Flight Engineer Don Pettit of NASA used Angry Birds Space to explain the physics in space, which included a demonstration of a catapult in zero gravity using an Angry Bird.

The Chaos Computer Club wants to create a censorship free internet by sticking its own satillites in space. Hackers at the Chaos Computer Club’s Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin proposed an initiative called the Hackerspace Global Grid (HGG), which aims to create and freely make available satellite based communication.

The outfit also says it wants to stick a hacker on the moon in 23 years, but their first goal is to deal with threats to the Internet like the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), by creating an “uncensorable Internet in space.” The project builds off of an earlier idea by Nick Farr in August for a Hacker Space Program.Armin Bauer is working on the communications infrastructure for the project with his team.

His background is with the Constellation platform that uses Internet-connected computers for aerospace related research. It is developing an idea for a network of low-cost ground stations for when the project gets low-orbit satellites up there. The stations would be there to pinpoint satellites and facilitate sending data back to earth.

Some users were impatient and pounced on the chance to get the 100GB of storage on Cloud Music Player. The service cost $100 but the company has mailed them, or should have by now, to tell them they will be reimbursed with $80.

The company’s mail reads:”Because your current plan now includes unlimited space for music, we're refunding the difference between the cost of your original Cloud Drive plan of 100 GB and the cost of a current 20 GB plan ($20), which is the least-expensive Cloud Drive plan that includes unlimited space for music. A refund of $80 will be issued to the card originally used for your Amazon Cloud Drive storage plan.”

RIM, as expected, will be focusing a lot of attention with the upcoming release of the PlayBook to marketing it toward corporate enterprise customers. The company already has a strong foothold in this space, with most companies standardized on the BlackBerry as their enterprise portable communication platform of choice.

With PlayBook, RIM will look to leverage customers’ existing investment in their BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Using BES enterprise customers will be able to handle common functions, such as provisioning, configuring, applying corporate policies, application deployment/management, and, of course, auditing PlayBook devices using the BES infrastructure that they already own.

The PlayBook will offer multiple connectivity profiles that can be configured, including Personal mode, BlackBerry Bridge Mode, VPN Mode and BlackBerry Balance Mode. Using these options in different combinations, the corporate customers can offer a secure corporate experience while at the same time allow for personal use of the platform with specific areas on the PlayBook.

RIM looks to continue to expand the corporate offerings for the PlayBook, and it is expected that a number of those will be cloud offerings from RIM. It is unclear what RIM might be planning, but it does look as if the PlayBook will be different from its competitors, which we believe could be what it needs to be successful.